As the creator of Goldenvoice’s Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, Los Angeles–based Paul Tollett is the man behind one of the most successful music festivals—but it wasn’t always that way.
In the early days, the event struggled to pay its bills, but Tollett’s relentlessly innovative ideas built that flailing festival into the formidable force it is today, drawing sold-out crowds of fans for the pricey experience even in the depths of the recession.
With such success in recent years that the festival dependably sold out almost immediately when tickets were offered (and consequently beckoned gate-crashers in the thousands), Tollett and Goldenvoice took a bold step in 2012 to increase the bottom line, taking Coachella from a single weekend to a two-weekend blowout, nominally to allow more fans access and reduce overcrowding. Though some fans grumbled, the formula translated to a financial success, with the company selling out three-day passes, in record time, for both weekend shows.
The expansion didn’t stop there. The “S.S. Coachella,” a version of the festival on a cruise ship, set sail twice in December—to the Bahamas and to Jamaica.
